Poisoned Chess
Poisoned Chess is the current FIDE-compliant standard of play governing the ancient board game chess. The activity is a fatal two-player strategy game played on a checkered grid of 64 squares. Play consists of players alternating moves until one player successfully capture's their opponents 'king' token, which results in a lethal dose of unkown toxin to the losing player. The game's inherent danger and poorly understood phlogistonic properties have led to its strict regulation in many nations. Poisoned chess hobbyists are rare, though certain states still allow games to proceed as a punitive measure or for research purposes. Overview Mechanically, poisoned chess is the combination of physical gamepieces, a codified set of rules and an unknown phlogistonian energy produced by the the combination of the first two elements. Abstraction or modification of one or more element has unpredictable results (see matches: Lee v. Smulders, Gurov), and the precise nature of the energy is largely untested. The largest body of chess knowledge comes from the now-condemned practice of executing prisoners via forced chess matches, a practice common to the early, unregulated years of Flambeaux reign. Detection equipment provided by overseer scharfrichters consistently detected a phlogistonian surge at the moment of a game's conclusion. Less authoritatively, phlogiston-attuned acolytes would often report the sensation of a malevolent presence that grew more oppressive over the course of a match. Current efforts at suppressing poisoned chess have been largely successful. While the game has a history of expression in folklore and popular culture the actual rules are closely guarded, with only scholars and researchers given full access. Artifacts concerning high-level chess strategy have been classified as unstable phlogistonian weaponry and redacted by the Zero-Case Archive . For several decades Flambeaux state-printed pamphlets provided essays on the dangers of chess, and several similar publications are still in wide circulation. The game often appears in classical art as a token of death or folly, and in many dialects 'chess-player' remains a common pejorative for reckless or self-destructive behavior. Poisoned chess enjoyed a brief spike in public awareness in E6Y695 when a young Francois Baptiste defeated Xeracis Baptiste with a queen cross-check to gain the throne. The game was often cited by pundits as evidence of Baptiste's mental instability. Onset While the majority of laymen consider nonlethal chess to be an ancient and unfounded legend, a small codex of surviving material suggest that pre-poisoned chess was a safe and popular activity. The precise timing of poisoned chess's onset is unclear, primarily due to the large purge of chess-related history in the Fifth Epoch. Of the surviving 4th and 5th Epoch scholars, only Professor Julia Alterman's writings provide some (speculative) notes on the game's sudden change. She postulated that chess was altered in an udocumented phenospace experiment carried out soon after the collapse of the Cavendish Era. In want of other verifiable material, a selection from Alterman's theory is reprinted here: "An accidental sending, in all likelyhood. Introducing some artifact, or some thought process. Sending a person, even, a player. Understand that these were wild days. No one knew what phenospace was capable of or what energies they were drawing on. No one was regulating connections to the outside, and who knows what damage was done by the curious in those early years. Somehow, the idea'' of the game was passed through to phenospace and attached itself indelibly to some deadly force." -- Recovered by Archivist Ultan Reversion Attempts Chess enthusiasts have occasionally attempted to revert chess to its 'antidotal' state by staging games in specifically tailored environments or with specially prepared chessboards. The primary theory behind reversion was put forward in E5Y010 by Dr. Arpad Rubenstein (2150), who postulated that chess would become universally nonlethal if a completed game failed to kill the losing player. Rubenstein was ultimately unsuccessful in proving his claim, dying shortly after an attempt to invoke the fifty-move rule in a game against fellow researcher Paul Salai (2090). Several of Rubensteins successors have lost their lives in similar attempts, though the field's inherent danger dissuades many academics. To date the only known survivors of chess matches are players who have abandoned games in progress, though their safety appears to be contingent on the game table remaining unmodified. Notable reversion advancements include: *'Georgy Mistel (1654) v. Noam Piorun (1820): Both players survive more than three days after a lengthy stalemate. *'''Michal Lee (1700) v. Jean Smulders (1378): Smulders is stricken down shortly after receiving the final move in a game of chess-by-mail. News of the event prompts several prominent assassination-attempts by unsolicited chess. *'Yves Gurov (1798)': Found dead in his sealed laboratory after failing to complete a single-player chess puzzle. *'Bron Mansfield (1305) v. Lev Fritz (~1200)': An attempt to confuse the game with an illegal winning move by Fritz backfires and kills the victor. *'Unto Zappas (1633) v. Nikolai Pachl (1903)': A Talepesian -sponsored attempt at testing the Comprehension Paradox. Pachl is removed some miles from the game site and the winning move is made by Zappas three days later at a randomly determined time. Post-game controversy springs up after Pachl is found to have passed away several minutes before Zappas moved his remaining rook for the checkmate. Citations Cavendish Era Francois Baptiste University of Talepesia Zero-Case Archive -- This artifact curated by Archivist Ultan